My biking life as captured in kilobytes and text of my own and of friends I've met in the cycling community.

Friday, August 06, 2010

.... camping re-cap

I was wrong in my previous post. We didn't go to Enchanted Rock, we went to Perdenales Falls (not really much of a "waterfall" compared to Great Falls or Niagra, but good for TX). It was hot... very hot. The tent was fairly easy to set up as I knew well enough to do a dry run @ home, however I neglected to put the rain fly on at home... I mean, how hard could it be?.... Evidently harder than I thought. Next time will make more sense, but the heat & bugs made for a very frustrating set up.

After setting up the campsite, the "Unit" headed down to the river for a little cooling off session. The walk down to the river was pure torture. K was acting like her Aunt Flow was visiting... she gets rather grumpy when overheated. Once we got to the water though, her temperment settled down and we all enjoyed a nice swim in the river. As a matter of fact, it was next to impossible to keep E out of the river once we were in. She's like a fish that one! It was pure bliss, and everything I had hoped for. We stayed in the river for a good couple of hours (2-3) and decided to go for a quick hike on an overgrown trail. The trail led us to an estuary that fed the river from a spring no doubt, as the temperature was a good 15* cooler than the main river. We splashed and played in that for a while and helped E look for animal tracks near the waters edge. Then the hike back to the camp. Once @ camp we all kind of settled in. I started the fire (tried my magnesium fire starter but failed) and K found some sticks to use as Hot Dog/Marshmellow skewers. We cowed down... I swear hot dogs have never tasted so good... well, Turkey dogs, but you get the idea. The one thing I neglected to bring was a cup. K was smart and kept her cup from Sonic, but I tossed my before we left, so I had to drink straight from the water container, and I drank a lot... Ummmm dehydration! As nightfall was upon us the girls crawled into the tent hand went to sleep. I stayed up for a while and watched the glowing embers in the fire pit, then climbed into my hammock for a little relaxing. I finally turned in ~ 11:00 only to be awakened by our college aged neighbors who decided to roll into their campsite late, and began drink, talking loudly, and playing music! It was still hot, K was annoyed, E tossed and turned all night, and I slept like a baby... typical for us. At first light we all had a family breakfast and K and I looked at eachother and said "let's go for a bike ride". We brought both bikes and E's tag-a-long.. spun for a loop of the park, then headed back to camp and broke down our site. It was getting hot, and I was glad to be getting out of there sooner rather than later. E was bummed because she wanted to spend the day in the river, but K was exhausted and I was dehydrated... perfect time to head home!

Next up is a trip to the Frio River and Concan. This would be an awesome trip, but K invited one of her friends who I loath... I'll bring my bike and go for a loooong ride while they hen around.

1 comment:

so easy to entertain the kids when water is available! such a bummer about the camping neighbors-- so hard to know what you're going to get a campsite (and i like it quiet, quiet, quiet when i'm camping, so i can hear all the bugs and animal sounds)... frio river sounds nice. will it really be cold?!